WW2 100 – 21 January 1945 – Forecasting for D-Day: Flight Sergeant Rennie Arthur Loader (1915-45) Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, 518 Squadron
Continued from 1 November 1944 LIEUTENANT HARRY ROYSTON BARTLETT (1924-44) 41 Commando, Royal Marines
https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2020/09/ww2-757-brave-royal-marine-wounded-at.html
The badge of 518 Squadron. Its
motto in Gaelic was ‘Tha An Iuchair Againn-Ne’, translated as ‘We hold the key’ Image credit: www.valka.cz
Rennie’s name does not
appear on Budleigh Salterton’s War Memorial. However his Commonwealth War
Graves Commission (CWGC) record tells us not only that he was a member of 518
Squadron, giving his Service Number as 1381426, but that his wife Mary
Grace was from the town.
Quite apart from that link with Budleigh, Rennie’s story reveals a fascinating and little known aspect of the Royal Air Force’s operations that he and his fellow-airmen in 518 Squadron carried out on an almost daily basis during WW2.
In fact the Squadron’s activities were so little known that at least one wartime history researcher has publicly expressed his frustration. Posting a letter to the Royal Air Force on the Freedom of Information website www.whatdotheyknow.com, Tony Shew complained that there was ‘no official information regarding the squadron, nor the personnel within the squadron’. This particular RAF unit seemed to be a special case. ‘Details of other Coastal Command squadrons are freely available but I have discovered that operations and service records for 518 Squadron have been subject to the 75 year rule,’ he wrote on 31 January 2019.
A Landing Craft from the US
Coast Guard-manned USS Samuel Chase disembarks troops of Company E, 16th
Infantry, 1st Infantry Division wading onto the Fox Green section of
Omaha Beach in Normandy on the morning of 6 June 1944. Image credit: Robert F.
Sargent; Wikipedia
Later that same year, the Squadron’s role came to the fore with the 75th anniversary celebrations of D-Day. For it became clear that Operation Overlord, the 1944 Allied invasion of Europe could have been one of the biggest disasters in military history had it not been for the decisions of a Scottish weatherman and data from an RAF squadron based on a small island off Scotland's west coast.
RAFVR poster Image credit: Imperial War
Museums
The CWGC lists Rennie as a member of the Royal
Air Force Volunteer Reserve (RAFVR), which was
formed in July 1936 to supplement the Royal Auxiliary Air Force. The purpose
was to provide a reserve of aircrew to draw upon in the event of war. The
Auxiliary Air Force, which had been formed in 1925 by the local Territorial
Associations, was organised by squadron and used local recruitment similar to the
Territorial Army Regiments. When WW2 broke out in September 1939 the RAFVR
comprised 6,646 pilots, 1,625 observers and 1,946 wireless operators.
During the war, the Air Ministry used the RAFVR as the
principal means of entry for aircrew to serve with the RAF. All those called up
for Air Force Service with the RAF, both commissioned officers and other ranks,
did so as members of the RAFVR under the National Service (Armed Forces) Act
1939.
I do not have access to Rennie’s
service record which would tell us when he joined 518 Squadron, but his rank
and the fact that the 30-year-old was specially chosen as aircrew for his
tragic last flight would indicate that he was highly regarded for his years of
experience. On that occasion, he was one of the three Wireless Operators, and
it is likely that this was his specialism.
Location of Tiree, the most westerly of the Inner Hebrides islands. Image credit: Wikipedia
The small island off Scotland's west coast was Tiree, from where
the Squadron flew hundreds of miles westward in all weathers to record meteorological
data. Land-based weather stations could not provide forecasters with information
on conditions far out in the Atlantic, but Rennie and his fellow-airmen would
set off on their missions in specially equipped aircraft to fulfil this vital
role.
518 Squadron was formed on 6 July 1943 at RAF Stornoway in Scotland, part of No. 15 Group RAF, Coastal Command, and was equipped with the Handley Page Halifax bomber. It moved to RAF Tiree on 25 September 1943, making daily long-range flights out into the North Atlantic, codenamed Mercer patrols. The aircrews observed U-boat activity as well as collecting meteorological data.
Soroby Burial Ground, Tiree. Of the 19 graves,
11 were of airmen killed between 1943 and 1945. Image credit: Commonwealth War
Graves Commission
Needless to say, the frequently atrocious weather conditions made Tiree one of the most dangerous RAF postings. On 24 January 1944, all eight crew members of Halifax LK704 were killed when the aircraft hit cliffs at Bundoran in Donegal, Ireland. The Squadron suffered many other losses. It is thought that ten of its aircraft and 54 crew were lost in that year alone.
From February 1944, a second form of patrol codenamed Bismuth was introduced. Based on a triangular pattern it covered the area between Iceland and the Hebrides.
Late in the evening on 5 June, an aircrew led by Flight Lieutenant
Freddie Green was briefed for a special one-off Bismuth patrol. The mission in
their Halifax aircraft LL123 consisted of a westward flight of 650 nautical
miles out into the Atlantic followed by a second leg of 400 nautical miles north-east,
and a turn towards home at a point 150 nautical miles south of Iceland.
A WW2 RAF Meteorological Air Observers badge Image credit: www.militariazone.com
Further special instructions included sending coded weather reports more
frequently than usual, amounting to a trebling of the workload of the wireless
operator and the meteorological observer.
A memoir which recorded the flight in detail, vividly written by LL123’s navigator, Warrant Officer John Bristow, describes the terrifying conditions: wind speed much higher than had been forecast, violent rain and hail alternating with sleet and snow storms, chunks of ice flying off the aircraft and crashing into the fuselage, even the ‘hairy moment’ when the crew had to cope with the phenomenon known as St Elmo’s Fire.
‘The
aircraft's flying surfaces took on a blue hue with dancing lights everywhere playing
havoc with both the navigational instruments and with radio reception,’
recalled John Bristow.
He added that the special instructions included flying for certain
periods at set altitudes, including just above sea level. ‘It doesn't take much
of an imagination to realise how difficult it was for Flt Lt Freddie Green to
maintain a steady height of 50 feet above such a tempestuous sea with no
horizon to get a visual on, the cloud base virtually down to sea level and
compounded by heavy and relentless rain.’ The pilot’s task was to hold the aircraft steady
for approximately five minutes at that dangerously low level to assist the Meteorological
Observer with his calculations.
Halifax Mark V Series 1A, LL296
'S', of 518 Squadron RAF based at Tiree in flight over the Caledonian Canal
while diverting to Kinloss, following a 'Mercer' patrol. LL296 was destroyed in
a mid-air collision with another Halifax of the Squadron on 16 August 1944.
Image credit: Imperial War Museums HU 66009
John Bristow mentioned that another Coastal Command aircraft, engaged that same night on a meteorological sortie from RAF Brawdy in South Wales, failed to return to base. It was presumed lost at sea with its entire crew after reporting the same horrendous weather conditions. ‘Out in the North Atlantic the air crews of Coastal Command do not get a second chance and the wearing of parachutes in case of an emergency was regarded as a total waste of time.’
To appreciate the full horror of the flight you really have to read John
Bristow’s account in full here
A meeting of the Supreme Headquarters Allied
Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) on 1 February 1944, when Operation Overlord - the invasion of Europe - was the main item on the agenda. Front row: Air Chief Marshal
Arthur Tedder; General Dwight D. Eisenhower; General Bernard Montgomery. Back
row: Lieutenant General Omar Bradley; Admiral Bertram Ramsay; Air Chief Marshal
Trafford Leigh-Mallory; Lieutenant General Walter Bedell Smith. Image credit: Photograph TR 1631 from the
collections of the Imperial War Museums
Those atrocious conditions experienced by Flight Lieutenant Green and his crew formed the basis of 518 Squadron’s report warning that a bad weather front was moving in on Britain from the Atlantic. Low cloud would mean that air cover could not be provided for the invasion force, and rough seas would be likely to sink landing craft.
Surface weather analysis map showing weather fronts on 5 June 1944. Image credit: Fuelbottle; Wikipedia
On 4 June, Group Captain James Martin Stagg, the Met Office expert attached to the RAF, noticed a report from a ship stationed 600 miles west of Ireland indicating a rise in the barometric pressure, and from this he deduced that there could be a break in the weather on 6 June. That possibility, coupled with the bad weather report from 518 Squadron, persuaded him to recommend to General Dwight D. Eisenhower that the D-Day invasion of Normandy be postponed from 5 to 6 June 1944.
German meteorologists did not have the insight into weather conditions in the Atlantic that the Allies had because they did not have sufficient control of the air space which allowed regular missions by meteorological units like 518 Squadron.
John Bristow’s dramatic account of that weather forecasting mission on 5 June has been published by historian Geoff Pringle on his website at www.oldnautibits.com
Rennie did not take part in the mission. It’s mentioned here not just because of its importance in the planning of D-Day, but because its route was identical to the one taken on his last flight, in January the following year.
Telling the story of the final flight of Halifax LL123, Geoff Pringle presents it as a sad post-script to the earlier epic journey. His account is based on a longhand report written after the event by Warrant Officer Gordon Wilkes RAFVR.
With the Normandy Campaign well under way, on the night of 20 January 1945, the Commanding Officer of 518 Squadron, Wing Commander Norman Foster Morris, decided to fly a routine Bismuth patrol himself. It would follow the same triangular route and use the same Halifax aircraft LL123 which Flight Lieutenant Green had piloted on 5 June 1944. This time, the crew was different; it was specially selected by the CO, and apparently included the most senior and most experienced specialists of the Squadron, including Rennie.
Flight Lieutenant Max Bacon (4th left) is with his aircrew from RAF 518 Squadron beside their Halifax LL123 which was lost on operations over the Atlantic on 21 January 1945. Far right is Flight Sergeant Tony Porazka, a Polish Meteorological Air Observer). Image credit: Mike Hughes and An Iodhlann – Tiree’s Historical Centre www.aniodhlann.org.uk
Rennie was not a member of the regular crew of Flight Lieutenant Max Bacon, seen in the above photo.
Curiously, a Flight Sergeant S. Loader was the Flight Engineer on the earlier mission of 5 June 1944.
Halifax LL123 departed Tiree at 11.30 pm on 20 January. The flight plan proceeded normally at 1,800 ft to a position 250 nautical miles to the west, where a routine observation was made at 3.28 am. When the aircraft was 350 nautical miles out into the Atlantic, Wing Commander Morris climbed to 18,000 ft, where he turned northeast.
Other weather reports should have been transmitted, but the deteriorating conditions made this impossible. As a result, the next message sent was at 7.12 am on 21 January, when Tiree was advised that the aircraft was at 10,500 ft, with the inner starboard engine causing concern.
At 8.08 am one of the three Wireless Operators on board
– it could have been Rennie – started transmitting an SOS. That continued until
8.18 am, when the signal was abruptly lost. The final fix located the position
of the aircraft at position 59N 11-13 W.
Runnymede Memorial, Surrey Image credit:
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Aircraft from 281 Squadron then spent the subsequent four days searching for survivors, but the weather was so poor the search was abandoned at 11.14 am on 24 January 1945. Along with Rennie, all the crew are commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial: Wing Commander Norman Foster Morris, Warrant Officer Anton Anderson, Flight Sergeant Albert Andrews, Flight Lieutenant Arthur Bacon, Flight Lieutenant Robert Beuttell, Flight Sergeant Robert Kiddle and Flight Sergeant William Stone.
All were members of the RAFVR,
except for Warrant Officer Anton Anderson who was a member of the Royal
Australian Air Force.
The next post is for CAPTAIN GERALD ARTHUR RICHARDS (1909-45), who died on 23 January 1945 while serving with the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). You can read about him at
https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2021/05/ww2-75-23-january-1945-tragic-accident.html
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